1999/0056
HEALTH BILL WILL REVOLUTIONISE HOW THE NHS DELIVERS FOR PATIENTS
21st Century care to be delivered by modern and dependable NHS
"Patients all over the country will get 21st Century care, driven by their own local doctors, nurses and health and social care professionals, under measures contained in the Health Bill" says Frank Dobson, Secretary of State for Health.
Mr. Dobson said:
"In less than 50 weeks'' time, we will enter the 21st Century. The Government is determined to deliver a National Health Service fit for that 21st Century. The measures contained in the Health Bill will deliver that 21st Century care for patients. Nowhere will patients see the difference more than when they go to see their local GP or health centre.
"The changes we are making will take time. But the introduction of Primary Care Groups and further down the line the creation of Primary Care Trusts will totally transform how the Health Service cares for patients. They will deliver a system that is moulded to the needs of the patient, rather than the current arrangements which sometimes appear to be organised the other way around.
"We expect the new freedoms for Primary Care Trusts, which the Bill will introduce, will result in groundbreaking new services for patients, extending choice and convenience, such as:
- walk-in health centres on the high street;
- more use of convenient day surgery in health centres close to home;
- top quality health checks and advice sessions in new clinics;
- joined-up health care, offering, for example, treatment, advice, physiotherapy and chiropody all on the same site;
- wider health partnerships with GPs teaming up with dentists, opticians and pharmacists combining to provide a complete package of health services from one complex.
"Local health care will be driven by local Health Improvement Programmes, putting local doctors and nurses in the driving seat, making sure that every part of the country gets the type of care, the range of care and the quality of care that is individually matched to the particular needs of their part of the world. "New legal duties will make sure, for the first time, that all parts of the NHS and social care work together in partnership and deliver the very best quality services. The old, two-tier fundholding system will go. Hospitals in future will be comparing, not competing.
"One of the most noticeable changes that patients will see is the introduction and deployment, over time, of 21st Century technology.
"The new Primary Care Groups and Primary Care Trusts will deploy 21st century information technology for the first time, harnessing leading edge technology to deliver the world''s most advanced healthcare system to NHS patients:
By the end of the 1999 financial year, all computerised GP surgeries will be hooked up to NHS Net the Health Service''s own information superhighway;
- 24 ground-breaking pilots of on-line booking of appointments will be underway in 1999, giving patients the benefit of a while-you-wait, instant appointment booking service, direct from their local doctor''s surgery;
The world''s first national on-line prescribing system PRODIGY will be progressively rolled out during 1999, enabling GPs and patients to consult and discuss the very latest medical advice and diagnosis, at the touch of a button as they sit in front of a computer terminal in the surgery;
Hospital test results will start to be despatched instantly during 1999, via computer from hospital to doctor''s surgery, slashing the amount of time patients and the GPs have to wait for results;
Doctors'' prescriptions will begin to be sent directly from the local surgery to local chemists and pharmacists, which could mean their medicine will be ready to be picked up immediately by the patient on arrival;
Work will begin to give every person in the country their own, lifelong Electronic Patient Record, which eventually could provide details of each individual''s medical history and condition instantly available 24 hours a day on-line to doctors, nurses or even via laptop to paramedics at the scene of an accident.
All of this will enable the National Health Service to rightly claim the mantle of the world''s most technologically advanced national healthcare system.
"And unlike other systems around the world, once it is fully rolled out, this most advanced system will be available to everyone, regardless of their ability to pay."
[ENDS]
